Wake
Sunnepho
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being made from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Warnings: Some violence, couple of OCs. No pairings.
Summary: Being stuck in his own head wasn't pleasant at the best of times. The delirium of mako poisoning didn't help. Through memories of a war he wasn't sure he actually lived through, Cloud learned to... deal. Pre-game, semi-AU off Crisis Core events.
Additional warning: This is written solely for my own entertainment. That and because I cannot effing concentrate on what I'm supposed to be studying while it's in my mind. This means there will probably be silliness and melodrama. No attempt at a serious artistic endeavour, so proceed at your own risk.
Part 1 - Green walls
He can't breathe, he realizes.
He can't really move at all, actually. His fingers do this feeble little twitch when he tries to raise his hand, his eyes feel like bloated duck eggs scraping against his sandpaper eyelids, and his tongue is huge and trying to suffocate him by stuffing itself down his throat. What a stupid way to die.
His thoughts drift away from him, darting around like the little minnows in the creek that winds around the mountain just outside...
He can't remember.
It's home. He can't remember.
He can't breathe, he realizes.
His mouth falls open with a little croak, and he sucks greedily at the air.
There's a gasp, somewhere on his right side, and then a loud creak. He recognizes the sound of tortured wood. It probably hasn't been waterproofed very well, and the damp has wound its way into the fibres until they rot away, collapsing into tiny pockets of mush. It'll seep and seep until it's all eaten, leaving holes and gaps that can't even be called clean. Filled with useless shit. Kind of like his brain.
He grabs onto his decaying thoughts for a moment, and then he lets them go.
His head hurts like something's trying to pound his eyes out of their sockets from the inside, and he wonders what it'd look like. Some kind of offensive little troll with big saggy balls, probably, hammering away with its fists.
The bed—it's probably a bed; feels like a bed, although he can't remember the last time he had a bed, so maybe he's wrong—sags a bit, like someone's leaning over him. And then everything in his head is screaming because he feels cold, smooth metal under his back, and the air is thick like water gushing into his mouth and nose and ears.
It's not. The bit inside him that's panicking is what's left of the weedy little kid, slamming his fists against the glass of the tank. It's not. It's a bed. It's too soft, and it smells a bit musty. He feels heat against his shoulder, like a touch hovering just beyond contact.
"Cloud? Are you awake?"
His eyes won't open much, but there's a little gap there, and he can sort of see.
There's a low concrete ceiling, shot through with spider web cracks, and there are big dark eyes peering at him.
There's a green glow on everything, like some demented interior decorator had gone and poured radioactive neon paint on every surface of the room. It's not until he can't keep his eyes open any more, and they slide shut, that he remembers. It's still green. It's always green because of his eyes.
Too bad. He used to kind of like green.
He can't really breathe.
He'd seen the ocean before, when he was brought along on that vacation to Costa del Sol. Granted, he was only there because he was supposed to be guarding the president, but old man Shinra spent most of his time on the beach, and he could only stare at that lardy ass for so long, right?
The ocean there was really blue, and he remembered the heat of the sand under his feet. There were seagulls screaming in the sky, and babes in bikinis smiling at him from the water.
This ocean was pretty thoroughly uninviting. The water was so blue it was nearly black, and the waves were choppy and tipped with white. There weren't any seagulls around here. Probably all got eaten by monsters.
A couple of foot soldiers were hauling cargo up a plank extending from the side of one of the fleet of ships that he hadn't even known the ShinRa Electrical Company owned until about a week ago, and the one holding the lower end of the crate started cussing loudly when they teetered and started the plank shaking.
An old sergeant was ticking off a clipboard at the base of the plank, and when he saw the soldiers stagger, he raised the board and shook it as if he wanted to hurl it at the grunts.
"The fuck are you doing, you little sacks of prissy shit?" he bellowed. "You think Shinra pays you to prance around like little girls? If you drop that crate, I'll take it out of your fuckin' asses!" His neck was bright red from exertion by now, and he looked like he turned an even brighter red when he shuffled around and caught sight of his observer. "Who the hell are you?"
"Soldier Second Class Cloud Strife," Cloud said, bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet. "I'm, er..." He glanced around at the fleet of ships, masts bristling in the water like a flattened pin-cushion.
"Soldiers are on that ship over there, the Mary-Anne," the sergeant grunted, quiet now that he recognized Cloud's uniform.
"Gotcha, thanks."
"First time being deployed, son?"
"That obvious?" Cloud grinned, rubbing his fingers against the back of his neck.
The sergeant grunted again, and crossed his arms. "You kids are always piss-pants excited, until you get there and some wacko ninja is trying to lop your head off. I've been on and off the field with this company for the last forty years, and I've seen plenty of dumb Soldiers get sent home in little boxes."
Cloud blinked at the old man.
The sergeant sighed. "Look, watch your back out there, right? Wutai's all trees or bare-ass mountains, and them ninjas know how to hide like nobody's business. You wouldn't know they'd surrounded you until they were on top of you."
Cloud dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword, strapped tightly to his back. He gripped it now, and he nodded.
The man eyed him for a moment, mouth twisted in a grimace, and then he said, "Strife, right? They stopped boarding Soldiers about ten minutes ago. You'd better holler up to get them to drop the ladder again."
"Oh, nah. I'm good." Cloud jogged to the edge of the harbour, his sword clinking a little bit as it tapped against his belt. He tensed at the last step, the muscles bunching in his legs and bursts of mako energy pulsing in response, and then he was flying. The ground dropped away sharply behind him, and the sergeant's upturned face shrank until he was just a pink blob. Cold wind funnelled into his ears, nearly blocking out the yell at his back. He spread his arms wide at the apex of his jump, relishing the feeling of being carried by nothing by air, high up enough to vault his old house back at home in the mountains. Then, the black of the transport ship spread out below him, and he loosened his knees to absorb the shock of his landing.
There was a surprised shout from the deck of the ship, but then he was already leaning forward and catching himself with a hand as he thumped onto the pebbled metal.
"Fuck, Strife! Warn a guy before you try to give him a heart attack!"
"Sorry, Travers."
"You sunovabitch, you're not sorry at all!"
Cloud glanced over the railing while Travers was trying to put him into a headlock, he was digging his thumb hard into the pressure point at the base of the guy's hand to stop him, and they were spinning around in circles on the deck like lunatics. The old sergeant had a funny expression on his face, but Cloud waved anyway.
The man looked like he snorted before he turned back to the cargo ship.
Below decks, the ship was outfitted just like the barracks back in Midgar. Narrow bunks lined the even narrower corridors, and a little stretchy mesh strip was sewn onto the bottoms of the pallets for the Soldiers to stow their belongings.
Every bed Cloud could see was occupied, but judging by the dead silence and the way the Thirds were eyeballing him in their peripheral vision, he was the only Second in the area. He checked his pack quickly: extra uniform, standard; battered aluminum kit, standard; porno mag... He was going to strangle Kunsel next time he saw him.
He quickly rolled up the magazine and stuck it into his back pocket, torn between tossing it overboard immediately and stashing it in Angeal's pack and waiting to see the man's expression when he found it.
Unbuckling the harness that held his sword to his back, Cloud leaned it against the wall within easy reach. He didn't bother kicking off his boots, instead letting his feet dangle off the end of his bunk as he lay back and laced his fingers behind his head on the thin pillow. The wire springs over his head sagged a little in the centre and then squeaked when the upper bunk's occupant shifted. Another moment of silence, and then there was a violent squeal before the Third overhead dropped lightly to the ground.
Cloud watched the guy—mid-twenties, built a bit like an ox—while the Third paused for a moment. Then he straightened up and loped down the row of beds without looking at Cloud once. Cloud stifled a snort, and he closed his eyes.
Only a couple of minutes passed before he heard heavy footsteps clank against the panelling of the floor. Cloud kept his eyes closed and listened. Multiple sets of footsteps. Three people. Long, deep whoosh of air. Big guy, big lungs. Tiny whisper of cloth. Disciplined; little wasted movement. Standing right by his head. Probably not a Third.
Cloud looked up into Travers's face.
Travers rolled his eyes. "You know, if you hadn't been so late, you would have gotten a room on the Seconds' deck."
"Maybe I like it better here," Cloud said blandly. "These guys are probably plenty more fun than you assholes."
Evans edged around Travers to lean against the pole supporting the upper bunks. "You could probably stay with Angeal. I heard the officers get a couch in their cabins."
Cloud thought about it for a moment, and then he grimaced. "Pass, thanks. There's a limit even to my affection."
Travers snickered. "He'd talk about honour and pride the whole night, wouldn't he?"
"Nah, he's not that bad."
Travers smacked his palm against Cloud's knee. "Move, Strife, before I sit on you."
Cloud scowled. "Ever hear of asking nicely, douchebag?" He sat up anyway.
"There's not enough room for us all to stand around. What, were you standing behind the door when they were passing out brains?"
Cloud watched as Travers sprawled over the head of his bed, leaning back on one hand and covering a yawn with the other.
Edward Travers had been on his team during his evaluation for Soldier Second. The man had about five years on Cloud, and he'd been a Second then and would probably stay a Second. The evaluation had involved a leadership exercise after Cloud had gone through the physical and psychological tests, and so Cloud had led a small team of career Seconds on a retrieval mission in a minor terrorist base. Travers had challenged his authority immediately, and Cloud figured he was probably scripted to do so, but it had taken a violent shouting match and an impromptu scuffle before Travers had grinned at him, wiping the blood from his mouth, and said that he wouldn't tell about the fight if Cloud didn't. Cloud had protested that Travers threw the first punch anyway, but the asshole just laughed like he'd forgotten that he'd lost.
The next day, Cloud had just tried on his new purples when Travers burst in on him and dragged him down below the Plate to celebrate.
Evans sighed and scratched his head, where black stubble was starting to show from his shaved scalp. "Sorry, Strife."
Cloud had met Curtis Evans on a mission to the Junon area right after he'd made Second, when faulty information nearly got him and Kunsel killed. The MPs with them had already been killed by the feral monsters that roamed the area, and the anti-Shinra group they were looking for had rigged their base to detonate after locking Cloud and Kunsel in. It had taken all the thunder materia Cloud had to fry the locking mechanism, but that had also plunged them into complete darkness, so when they tore out of the building and raced toward cover, the explosion at their backs knocked them off their feet and blew out their eardrums. Evans had been the Second in charge of the rescue team, and he'd hauled Cloud onto his bike before bitching about him bleeding all over the leather the whole way back to Junon.
Cloud flipped Travers off casually, and the last member of the group rumbled a laugh through his chest.
His name was Peter Hoffe, the quietest, shyest seven-foot tall, three-hundred ten pound Soldier Third Cloud had ever met who could put together a M-4 carbine, including standard accessories, in about forty seconds. The other members of his squad called him Tiny, because if there was anything Cloud could say about Soldier humour, it was that it's predictable. He'd taken the Second evaluation the same time as Cloud, but he'd failed sometime before the leadership trial started, and he'd looked so relieved that Cloud didn't say anything.
"Why were you late, anyway?" Hoffe asked.
"Not that it's any of your business," Cloud said to Travers before turning around to grin at Hoffe, "but I was..." He faltered, his mind coming up blank.
The silence stretched out for a moment before Travers scoffed. "If you're trying to think up a good excuse, don't bother."
"No, I'm sure I..." Cloud frowned. There was an image, just out of reach in his mind. He scrabbled for it mentally, pale little claws glittering in the dark, and a stinging pain shot through his temple. "Ugh," he wheezed, digging his fingers into the side of his head.
There wasn't anything to see. Just blackness, and a girl's voice. "Jeez, Cloud, you shouldn't have slept in today."
"Yeah," said another kid's voice, snide and nasal, "we're already in groups, you know. You'll have to work alone. Again."
There was laughter, like the kid had said something uproariously funny.
Something stung in the back of his eye, and there was the sharp scent of snow in his nose.
Hands grabbed his shoulders.
Snow? Cloud tried to think over the din in his head. He hadn't seen snow until he made Soldier and got sent north on assignment. The smell of humid earth and chirps of jungle frogs darted through his memory.
The buzzing in his ears got louder.
The prickle of ice crystals melting against his skin.
"Strife?" Someone was shaking his shoulder.
The murky light of sun through leafy cover, parasitic flowers sitting high above in splashes of colour.
"Cloud!"
Cloud's eyes snapped open.
Evans peered down at him. "You okay?"
It took him a couple of seconds to remember how to move his muscles, but then he slid up toward the centre of his bed and shoved Travers onto the floor. "Yeah," he said over Travers's hissy fit. He stretched out on the bed, closed his eyes, and smiled. "Just a headache. Let me get some sack time, and I'll be fine."
They hovered for a moment, and Cloud could feel their stares. He waved a hand at them.
"Get lost. I'll be fine."
"Alright," Travers said finally. "We'll see you at mess."
"Yup." He heard the footsteps again, and when he called after them, he wasn't sure what kind of compulsion it was that made him open his mouth. "Hey, Evans?"
The steps paused. "Yeah?"
"I told you about where I came from, right?"
"Yeah. Nibelheim, right?" Evans said, slowly.
"Right." Cloud reached up, tracing a lopsided mountain range in the air. "Nothing there but a mako reactor and permafrost halfway up the mountain."
When it became apparent that Cloud wasn't going to say anything else, Travers snorted. "See you later, country boy."
It wasn't until after they were long gone that Cloud cracked open his eyes. His bunkmate was back, standing just below the ladder. The Third jumped a little when he met Cloud's eyes.
Cloud reached into his pocket. "Magazine?" he offered.
The ship made a stomach-turning rolling motion, accompanied by a long, low creak, and Cloud curled tighter on his bed.
The barracks were built like a box, shutting out all outside light. A couple of lanterns swayed at each end of the corridor, lending definition to the shadows, but Soldiers didn't really need them anyway. Shapes stood out in sharp relief, lined with a gritty green glow. Mako went everywhere, after the injections. Heightened senses, reflexes, strength... but it never left the eyes. Once, in a weird mood, Cloud had wondered if it was because of the light, like it was trying to escape or something. But there were easier ways of getting out. Aside from the green glow that washed over everything in low light, Soldiers tended to piss green for a little while, too, after an injection. Probably their bodies equilibrating or something. A particularly loud snore sawed at the air, and Cloud shut his eyes again.
He didn't hear anything this time, not that he probably could over the protests of his stomach, so when the fingers flattened knuckles down against his forehead, he flinched and pulled away.
He looked up at the man, half-stooped because he was too tall, standing by his head, and for a moment he saw a lopsided grin and a thin scar carved into a sharp jaw. Cloud's breath caught in his throat.
"I heard from Evans. Are you sick?"
Cloud blinked hard, and his vision settled. The jaw he saw widened and the forehead furrowed with gentle lines. He blinked again. "Angeal?"
"Were you asleep?"
"No," Cloud said, pulling himself up. "Where were you? Sir?"
"Conference call with Lazard. The Director mentioned that he'd be arriving at the front in a week or so. Looks like they're getting serious about finishing this war. We're assembling the entire Soldier department of ShinRa in Wutai." Angeal crossed his arms and suddenly made a face. "And Heidegger."
Cloud laughed, but it turned into a low moan, and he clutched at his stomach.
"Maybe you should get some air," Angeal said.
"Oh. Probably." Cloud shuffled for the half-open door, ignoring the way Angeal sighed and shook his head.
Cloud heard Angeal follow him, but the First didn't say anything when Cloud lurched for the railing and leaned his head over the side. He didn't do much of anything at all, besides carefully positioning himself upwind while he waited until Cloud had run out of stomach contents and was dry-heaving his guts out.
The water was very black at night, as if they were sailing through a pool of ink. It frothed in the wake of the ship, dirty white foam spreading outward in stringy loops like a cut sponge. He'd seen this before, Cloud thought. On the river that swelled to twice its size every spring, when meltwater poured into it from the mountains and carried anyway anything lighter than a Nibel wolf. He remembered blood dripping into his eyes and an arm bent back the wrong way while his mother screamed in his ear and held him close, even if his clothes were soaked and ruining her dress.
"You didn't use to get motion sick, did you?" Angeal asked suddenly.
"Huh?" Cloud said.
Angeal was frowning at him. "And you were late this morning, too. Honestly, Zack, what—"
Cloud spun around quickly enough that his boot slipped on a patch of spray and shot out from under him. He fell backward, head slamming into the railing hard enough it clanged.
"Cloud!" Angeal crouched in front of him, a hand tight on his shoulder.
Cloud hissed at the pain spreading down from his crown like molten syrup. He checked the hand he'd pressed against his scalp, but he saw no blood.
"What were you doing? Trying to crack your skull open?"
He looked up at Angeal, and he forced his gritted teeth apart. "Who's Zack?"
Angeal stared at him like he'd really knocked his marbles loose. "What?"
Cloud winced, pressing his palm back over his head. The ringing noise was subsiding, so that was probably just in his ears. It didn't explain the laughter he was hearing, though. It was a warm, deep sound, and then he tensed when a hand was pressed firmly against his back.
"It'll be okay, Spiky. Just leave it to me."
"What was that?" Cloud squinted at Angeal.
"What was what?" Angeal shook his head when Cloud glanced around, swaying slightly. "Alright, I'm taking you to the infirmary. You've probably got a concussion if you're hearing things."
The voice lingered in his mind like jet steam in the sky, diffusing a bit, but leaving clear trails as it etched its way across. It left faith in its wake, Cloud realized. He smiled.
"I'm really fine, Angeal."
"Right. I'm still taking you to the infirmary."
Cloud let Angeal lead him down below decks, feeling the phantom warmth of a wide hand over his shoulder blades.
"Heard you tried to jump overboard last night."
Cloud ignored Travers's grin. "Did not. I slipped and hit my head on the rail."
The ground felt a bit like it was still moving under his feet, but Cloud planted his boots firmly and tossed his duffel up onto the back of the truck with the others. Half dead scrubland stretched ahead, and the ocean was at his back.
"Was the railing alright?"
"Oh ha, you bastard."
Dust spin in little funnels over the ground, and long dead stalks of tall grasses crunched under the wheels of the trucks. Overhead, a raptor screamed.
The sand of the beach shifted under his boots and clogged up the treads. Cloud scowled down, kicking the heavy wheels of the truck to dislodge some of it. "How long did they say we'd travel by land?"
"Just a couple of days," Travers said. "We had to dock somewhere we couldn't be ambushed, but that means we're pretty far across the country from the front."
"Right. I'll go get—"
There was a short shriek, and then someone else yelled and the sound of machine gun cartridges emptying filled the air.
Cloud spun toward the sound, right into a whip of flying sand. "Argh!" He shielded his face, blinking his eyes rapidly as they teared up at the grit under his eyelids.
"The fuck is that?" Travers was slotting materia into his bracer as he stared down the beach.
It looked like a turtle, if turtles grew to be about the size of a small tank. Cloud wiped his face against his forearm, unlatched his sword from its sheath, and ran.
It had trampled someone, Cloud realized, seeing the splash of black-red on one of its horny-toed feet. Something glistened unpleasantly, wound around the shield-sized foot, but it quickly turned a dirty dust colour as sand stuck fast to its moist surfaces.
The monster made a hoarse croaking noise, and it turned to slam its shell into another soldier. Streaks of blood covered the sharp spines at the edge of its shell.
A fireball whirled past Cloud, detonating against the creature's shell and leaving black soot in its wake.
"Keep distracting it for me!"
Cloud ducked another fireball and rolled under the monster's tail as it spun around. He swung his sword up in a steep arc, but the turtle skittered back surprisingly quickly, and Cloud only managed to slice an oozing gash across its mouth. He slammed a hand into the ground and used the recoil to half-tumble, half-hop away. The monster's foot thudded into the ground where his head had been.
Cloud threw himself forward into a roll and managed to come up running.
A flurry of thunder spells hit the monster's head, leaving patches of burn marks on the grizzled skin. It stamped its feet, turning first one way and then the other, its eyes rolling at the men in independent frenzied dances.
Growling, Cloud threw his weight forward into a stab, but the monster twitched its head to the side, and the tip of Cloud's sword slashed into its eye, ripping it open and dripping sludge onto his blade, before glancing off the side of its face and sending Cloud stumbling.
Cloud scrabbled at the thing's shell with his free hand, catching the edge with his fingertips and launching himself onto the turtle's back.
He heard himself shouting something unintelligible as he swung his sword down with both hands.
He was still breathing harshly when Angeal tapped his knee to get his attention. Cloud glanced down at the headless beach turtle he was sitting on, and he grimaced at the monster gore covering his sword and arms.
He'd scrubbed his skin raw, but the smell of turtle spinal fluid was extra pungent, as bodily fluids went, and the other Seconds were giving him a damn wide berth.
Angeal leaned back in his seat, stretching his legs out in front of him, and nudged aside a haphazardly stacked pile of sacks. The First made an odd face, like he was smothering a grin, when Cloud looked at him.
"You're not going to hurl now, too, are you?"
TBC
Apologies for all the talky-talky. There'll be plenty more action next time.